"A Companion to Digital Humanities" offers a collection of articles (37 alltogether) about the field of humanities computing. One of those articles is written by Geoffrey Rockwell and Andrew Mactavish. It is titled "Multimedia" (A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion)
The following is a critical review regarding this article. A short introduction about the topic is provided by the authors:
"How do we think through the new types of media created for the computer? Many names have emerged to describe computer-based forms, such as digital media, new media, hypermedia, or multimedia. In this chapter we will start with multimedia, one possible name that captures one of the features of the emerging genre."
The article was produced in 2004, so we have to take into account that the contents may not be as conteporary as one might expect.
What is Multimedia?
Rockwell and Mactavish introduce two definitons of multimedia and propose a third one that "combines many of the features in the others with a focus on multimedia as a genre of communicative work:"
A multimedia work is a computer-based rhetorical artifact in which multiple media are integrated into an interactive whole.
The authors go on and use parts of the definition to analyze multimedia. These parts include:
- "computer based"
- "rhetorical artifact"
- "multiple media"
- "integrated whole"
- "interactive"
While being short and concrete, this definition needs to be updated and some critique is required. Today multimedia can be created and accessed by a number of devices including cellphones, MP3 players and tablets. The list is by no means final. Cellphones have 1 GHz processors and the word "computer" may refer to a variety of devices.
Also, "rhetorical artifact" is a very vague term to describe content. If we look at Facebook, it's certainly a multimedia gateway (sending, receiving and creating videos, photos and text using the Facebook platform). On the other hand, it's a collection of data and it has administrative capabilities regarding content.
The authors have excluded randomness from the definition of multimedia by stating that there's a creator and the intent for the work to be experienced as an artistic whole. Different platforms and technologies allow random content creation (user generated content) that is forwarded to the recipient in a feed form. The feed itself can combine various types of media and provide access to various types of media. By recording chat-roulette (www.chatroulette.com) sessions one may compile a totally random multimedia work. Examples can be found on the Youtube.
Types of Multimedia
The authors argue that "the challenge of multimedia to the humanities is thinking through the variety of multimedia artifacts and asking about the clusters of works that can be aggregated into types."
They propose the following list:
- Web hypermedia
- Computer games
- Digital art
- Multimedia encyclopedia
Such categorization is always dangerous. It's leaves little room for change and things do tend to change. Especially in the field of multimedia and everything interactive. Web hypermedia is a good primary category, but it's too general, today all the other categories might as well be parts of the first one. Rigid categorization is out of date, because information (regarding it's objective) is consumed and manipulated online.
History
The history section of this article requires little critique, it's accurate, but not very comprehensive. It's understood and probably related to length restrictions and the primary focus of the article.
Numbers and text, images, desktop publishing, authoring environments, sound, digital video and virtual space are discussed. Various categorizations may exist.
Main Academic Issues
Rockwell and Mactavish introduce few of the academic issues related to multimedia:
- Best practices in multimedia production.
- Game criticism and interactivity.
- Theories and histories of multimedia.
The list is by no means comprehensive. Many other issues exist, but Rockwell and Mactavish do not argue otherwise. All of the mentioned issues are still being studied today, but some new and interesting issues have emerged. For example, the use of multimedia in the field of education and learning.
Conclusion
The authors seem to think of multimedia as something static. They propose very rigid and concrete categories and forget to mention the dynamic essence of multimedia. It's an overview on the topic of multimedia, not a comprehensive analysis. The authors understand that and suggest links and materials for further reading. Even so, the article should have taken into account the possibility of change.
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